Rochester Sweeps

I caught a train to Rochester yesterday. I was feeling quite tired as I had only an hour or so sleep after the night shift. I got there at about 2.30 pm and headed toward the High Street. Morris dancers, there were hundreds of them! I spotted Richard Bridge playing his plugged in mandolin to accompany some clog dancers, I tried to catch his eye without interrupting him but he seemed to engrossed in the spirit of the dance, so I carried on down the street. There were a bunch of blokes in red and white wearing fezzes doing a weird dance/ritual that seemed to be attracting a large crowd and there were lots of colours and blackened faces about. As I turned the next corner I came upon a stage with PA and everything! Ty and Aisha, two people that I know from Orpington Folk club, were performing followed by that great Kentish band Pig's Ear. Great stuff. I went into a pub at the end of the High Street - Expectations I think it might have been called. There was some nutter playing over amplified guitar and alto sax along to a backing track. Flash bastard! Nothing to do with The ambiance of the Sweeps, in fact his crappy, badly played pop music, which blasted through the wide open pub doors into the street, had obviously ruined the day for the poor morris team who had the bad luck to draw the pitch outside!

Anyway I wandered back down the high street and bumped into sevral of the Greenwich lot including my old mate Alex Gorham. Then I made my way to that wonderful pub in John Street "The Good Intent" where to my surprise I found several folkmob people, in fact there were so many it seemed like it could be a rehearsal for Knockholt. There was:

Sue & Mick Forde
Mr & Mrs Mike Porter
Annie & Fay
Richard Phipps
George
Jim Radford
Dave Kenningham
Linda Essex

Plus the great John Barden, Melodeon Boy, Growler, Richard Bridge and a few more whose names escape me. It was a great session, there again with that crowd how couild it be anything else!

The only downer of the day was that I missed Tone Deaf Leopard. They had gone off to see Sid Kipper in concert.